Reading Through 2021 94: Sentient, by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta

Sentient, by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta

2020

I can now officially say I've given Jeff Lemire a fair chance, and I don't get the hype.

It's a good cover

He's a competent writer, but I don't see what others are seeing when they say he's their favorite writer, or he is put up for awards. My take on Sentient: an okay story told well with great art. That's three stars for the story, four stars for the storytelling, and five stars for the art.

Previously, I looked at his first six issues of Animal Man, which read like the prologue to a story as opposed to one ("Hey, if you just buy the next four trade paperbacks, plus the crossovers, it's gets good!"). And before that, I read his Justice League, which read like something a person was paid to do more than anything else I've written about this year. And before that, I'd read his X-Men run, which was a pillar of one of the bleakest periods in Marvel Mutant publishing history. I even have a hardcover of volume one of Sweet Tooth. It was fine; competent but unexciting.

There are action movie tropes in this

Lemire works hard to create a mood, and to some readers it must be a revelation, but I've just read a lot of other artists who've done it better without being bogged down with genre tropes. It's genre fare with heart. My frustration with his work is not that he's a bad writer. He isn't. It just isn't outstanding, which is what I've been repeatedly told his work is.

Walta's white lines bring out the details of the room and uniforms

That said, of the Lemire books I've read, this is he best of them, though still flawed. 

In advance, I have to mention that this is my first TKO comic, and the production quality is superb. Slightly oversized on a matte paper, I wish a penny-pinching company like Marvel would adopt this standard on its books.

And the art couldn't be better. Gabriel Walta, who made a name on the Vision 12-issue series a few years back, does the drawing duties. On the Vision, Jordie Bellaire did the colors, and here Walta does everything himself. Surprisingly, the color palette is very similar with browns and oranges, but here Walta draws more with the color. He's still relying on linework to create his images, but he creates texture and form using colors in a way that a separate colorist might not feel appropriate doing. 

There are a lot of mopey kids wandering, but kids who've lost their parents tend to mope

Lemire gives Walta lots of room to tell the story in pictures. Silent panels are plentiful throughout the book, and Walta lets the characters "act" out the story. The work is a great showcase for Walta's art, which is loose without being vague or sketchy. Like his work in the Vision, he keeps the storytelling down to earth, without many dutch angles or forced perspectives, and it gives the action scenes more believability.

The story is reminiscent of a number of sci-fi works, here is a play on 2001

The story is... not great. The book collects a single six-issue story, and the first half is quite good, while the second half is fine if you never think about it. The story takes place in the future, on a ship sending earth families to a colonized planet. The earth's environment is collapsing, and there is dissension on the colony on whether to let earth continue to govern it. All the adults on the ship are killed by a separatist, who is in turn killed by the ship's AI. The kids are left with the ship and its AI in a territory between the earth and the colony where communication is impossible. They continue moving toward the colony. As long as you don't think about it, it's fine. Why is a separatist on the earth ship when all the transports seem to go one way? I don't know. What were they going to do with the kids? I don't know. Why would they want a transport ship? I don't know. I can get past that sort of thing. Emotionally, it all works. The comic focuses on the two oldest kids who become the de facto "adults" on the ship, but having just lost their own parents, they are in no shape to be the rock for younger kids.

The story focuses on daily life on the ship, and the emotional states of the kids. This is good compelling stuff. 

The separatists kill all the people on their ship but leave the one guy nutty enough to try to kill kids

A lot of stories don't make sense if you pick them apart, and I was happy to see where this went by the halfway point. It then went to a very boring place. There is a refueling station the ship stops by, and the kids hear an SOS. The SOS is from a guy whose crewmates were killed, and his ship was taken by separatists. When he encounters the kids, he tries to kill them because he's gone crazy. They get away and their ship is boarded by separatists who had left the man on the station as bait! So they could take a second ship and do something with it. The kids fight, the bad guys die, and they go to the colony, the end. None of the separatists goals are addressed. The motive for separating is reasonable enough (freedom!), but it's never established why they would feel comfortable just killing earth citizens. Were they living under tyranny and oppression? On the colony, the concept of separatism is not addressed and life there seems just fine from the few images we see. The kids just live there happily ever after. 

The separatists were mere bad guys. This is a home invasion story set in space. 

So half the book is taken up with plot that doesn't have any relation to the the overall book. The bad guys are only there to give the two leads a reason to come together. It's very similar to the technique Zach Snyder employed in Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, when he introduced Doomsday in the third act to bring the quarreling heroes together. 

The AI has a fun 2000's iMac design

I would tolerate a story like this in made-for-Netflix movie, but I wouldn't call it great and tell people to watch it. The past five years has seen an explosion of competent but unexceptional science fiction, and this fits right in there.

There are good points to the writing here. When Walta draws silent sequences, that's Lemire having him draw that. I appreciate him letting the artist tell the story using only images. That's good comics. And I think Lemire is writing good characters on an emotional level. The two main kids do not have a good relationship, and are forced to come together. An image of the one character's hand touching the other is a subtle yet powerful way to communicate a change in their relationship.

Probably my favorite thing in the book

That is good writing. It doesn't make this a great book, but it was a fine Sunday read.

Reading Through 2021 69: Animal Man: The Hunt Volume 1, by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman

Animal Man: The Hunt Volume 1, by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman

2012

Last year, if someone had told me that not only was I going to read two New 52 comic collections this year, but that I would also pay for them, I would have told them they were liars.

Somehow, after reading the not very good Justice League United, I was convinced to give Mr. Lemire another chance, that his Animal Man run was good. I had actually read the first two issues at the time, before I realized just how horrendously misguided the entirety of the New 52 concept was and washed my hands of it all. And those issues were alright, I just hated what was going on overall with DC and didn't want to touch any of it. I hated Geoff Johns' writing, I hated Jim Lee's art, I hated editor Bob "I fired Claremont on X-Men so Jim Lee could quit the book two weeks later and then ran the franchise into the ground" Harris who was shepherding numerous projects. I was a long absentee reader who was checking back in, and saw that they were producing some atrocious comics. I felt stupid that I thought they might put out decent product. So I stopped looking at all DC, regardless of the creator. 

This year is the first year I've looked at anything they've published over the past decade, and the stuff I've enjoyed seems good in spite of the company, not because of it.

Anyway, this is about Animal Man, not how poorly managed DC is. But there might be a pinch of that anyway.

There are some potent images in the book

I loved Morrison's Animal Man, I liked Delano's, but I haven't read a new Animal Man comic since the year started with a one. It's no longer Vertigo, because Constantine was in a movie or something and intellectual properties need to be easily exploited. And because this is the New 52, it should be friendly to new readers.

It's reader friendly, as far as continuity goes. Animal Man Buddy Baker is a married family man, acting to pay the bills, but hasn't given up his tights. Immediately weird stuff starts happening at home, as he starts bleeding out his eyes and his four year old daughter starts reanimating the corpses of animals. They go off to meet the representatives of the Red, while representatives of the Rot attack his wife and son. Animal Man then comes back and saves them, and they have a quest to fight the Rot. That's five issues, and there's a sixth which is a movie which Buddy Baker starred in.

What is the Red, the Rot, and what about the Green?

The Rot

One thing that has changed since I read the first issue in 2012 is that I've read all of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, and his concept of the Green. The foundation of Lemire's Animal Man is the mythology of that proto-Vertigo book from the mid-80s. Having read that, I instantly understood what was going on in the book a whole lot better. The book name drops Swamp Thing a little and by the end of the first trade is headed to a crossover with the New 52 version of that book, which Lemire was also writing. 

Knowing about the Green makes this book a whole lot more interesting, but it's not so much that this book was so interesting, but that I liked the Alan Moore stuff so much and it was interesting to see it be elaborated on.  Moore's Green was a sort of cosmic field of plant consciousness. Lemire elaborates on that with the Red, the animal counterpart to that. It annihilates the old concept of Animal Man and how he got powers from aliens, but I'm not that attached to him as a character, so it was fine.

I think she's supposed to be four

This was way better than Lemire's Justice League United, a low bar to cross. But it's actually good. Lemire and Foreman try to bring some horror to Animal Man. I wasn't fully satisfied by it for reasons I'll get into at the end, but for a mainstream monthly book, it's way more compelling than most. Foreman has a unique style, using realism in places that contrast how grotesque it is in other places. 

Lots of open flesh in the Red

The sixth issue story has a guest artist, John Paul Leon, who is tonally very different than Foreman, but has very nice grounded art in the style of David Mazzuchelli or David Aja. In it, Buddy plays a washed up superhero, so I suppose it is meant to be a parallel to the main story, but I didn't think too much about any deeper reading.

It's got a bit of the vibe of the movie Super

I enjoyed the book overall, but there wasn't much of a story in the six issues. There was an introduction to a concept, and a fight and then it ended. Basically, in six issues, it had the amount of content that used to be in the first issue or two of something, and barely that. On top of that, it was leading into a crossover with Swamp Thing, so it was basically asking you to read two books for one story. I know decompressed storytelling was the trend of the day, but I want more density in a single book, or I want it to be packaged in longer intervals; put a dozen issues in a collection instead of six, and hopefully something of consequence has happened by the end.

What was in there was compelling, so when I put down the book I looked online at either trades or the omnibus. The trades are out of print and overpriced, and the omnibus was a lot more expensive than I was interested in spending on a storyline I wasn't that enamored with. If you can't produce a fat, reasonably priced collection of a single story, why would a normal person read it? The Big Two have decided that if you want older stories in print, you have to pay through the nose for deluxe editions, as they figure the only people really interested in reading them that way are over forty and have the cash to shell out for them. Otherwise, get some digital subscription. So I'm left holding a trade paperback that amounts to chapter one of a story. Maybe it is a great story, but I won't read it.

One Coin Reads 14: Justice League United Volume 1, by Jeff Lemire and Mike McKone

Justice League United Volume 1, by Jeff Lemire and Mike McKone

2015

Justice League Canada? I'm Canadian, I gotta like that, right?

I was actually excited to see a chimpanzee in the book, but it was just an image for Animal Man

It turns out, no. No, I don't. I'm not interested in dunking on books, and when there's a book I don't care for, I've been trying to critique it as if I knew the creators. You wouldn't say something is out and out terrible to someone's face.  This isn't terrible, but it's not good. It's another in a long line of corporate books created for the sake of taking up space on the shelves.

Why did I buy it? At first, I skipped over it multiple times. But it was only ¥497. That's a reason to buy. It's part of DC's New 52. That's a reason to skip. Jeff Lemire's a Canadian who likes making Canadiana, he's not an American simply making poutine references. That's a reason to buy. Jeff Lemire wrote one of the least interesting X-Men titles I've ever read. That's a reason to skip. Mike McKone is a solid, interesting artist. That's a reason to buy. DC editorial insists on their being multiple Justice League titles for brand recognition's sake. That's a reason to skip.

But I decided to buy it, and was actually kind of curious once it arrived. This wasn't like the Cyberforce book I pushed aside for three months afraid to open it. I put this ahead of a lot of other books hoping it would be a breezy, fun book while I read other heavier ones.

Next page, that guy is flying in a space suit. That's the origin of Adam Strange

Justice League United is a book. It has a beginning, middle and ending. It's all professionally done, but it feels so uninspired. The story is related to Ontario, and the action is spit between Moosonee and outer space. 

A quick synopsis: some Justice Leaguers investigate a disappearance in Moosonee and find an alien research center. They get teleported to space and fight a space terrorist trying to kidnap a super alien baby. The good guys win and they come back. A B-story involves a Cree high school student learning she has powers.

That's how you join the League

Potentially, Lemire could explore a lot of interesting things over a 40 issue series, but DC just cancels series that aren't juggernaut sellers, so judging this book on the six issues inside is completely fair to do. This book doesn't offer much new except for a novel Canadian setting, and it doesn't do much with that. You'd have to already be taken with the characters to want to know more, and I suspect that was the audience. Few people found this title by accident, as compared to the main Geoff Johns' Justice League title which probably did end up as some folks first exposure to the team.

This Justice League is: 

-Martian Manhunter, who is a stoic leader. I wish he had some of the dry humor of the 80s version of him, but this version is dour. I skipped 20 years of Justice League comics, so that is probably just what the character is now. 

-Green Arrow is an idiot, apparently. His one character trait is insulting Animal Man. I know this was the younger, cooler Nu-52 version, and it sucks. I'm not going to tone down my disdain here. It was a poor choice on whoever decided to recast him as brat.

-Animal Man, who is one of my favorite DC characters from back in the Vertigo era, basically acts like the MCU Ant-Man. He has a no respect schtick. 

Characterization

-Stargirl is a character I don't really know at all, but she was mostly interesting, and probably the best character in the book. She plays the role of an enthusiastic newbie. When a team of heroes goes into outer space, it's good to have at least one character not be bored by it. Of the main team, she is the most likable.

-Supergirl makes an appearance, but isn't in it much to give a sense of her character. She does have an interesting scene where she takes offense to Stargirl talking about aliens.

-Adam Strange. He finds an alien suit and instantly becomes a superhero. This was ridiculous. His wife Alanna Strange is given a similar suit and would seem to provide a similar role as him. It's an interesting twist, but in the context of the story it doesn't work.

-Equinox is the new character, but she doesn't have a code name in the story. They just invite her into the league.

I kinda love this?

They use Lobo in the space scenes, and not the Main Man version people like, but the NU-52, manscaped, DC-editorial-is-trolling-you Lobo. I kind of love it. It was a pointless change to make Lobo sexy-handsome, but it's so stupid that it goes all the way into amazing. I think this version is going to make a comeback one day, or at least live forever in clickbait lists of the worst changes ever made. I'm not trying to say it's good, but it is interesting.

So the story is bland, the characters are mostly thin and less likable than past incarnations, and nothing is compelling about it. How much of this is Lemire's fault? How much is it him simply working within the strict (so it has been said) editorial confines of the New 52? I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that they paid him to make a lemon and he tried to make lemonade. He put some Cree culture in a mainstream DC book. It wasn't a very good book, but most of the New 52 books weren't very good, so it's not like he was doing any worse than most there.

Panel 3 looks good

McKone is a good artist. He works in a style of hard, tight inks which isn't usually up my alley, but I like it when he does it, and have been a fan of his since I first saw his work in the 80s Justice League International. Whatever gripes I have with this, it isn't with him.

The coloring is bland for the most part, digital airbrush tools. On a few alien pages, it jumps to dayglo colors, and I thought it popped in a nice way, then it went back to "realistic" colors and I lost interest. There was one thing they did where action would get accented by flat red colors over black and white characters, foregoing all realism. That looked good. It didn't add up to much, but it was a neat technique and break from the rest of the book.

I couldn't recommend this to anyone. I checked Wikipedia, and it lasted 16 issues. That sounds about right. Everyone involved can do better than this.